Monday, February 22, 2016

The Mayor of London explains his reasoning in The Telegraph, and for someone who reportedly vacillated on the matter, it is a surprisingly powerful and comprehensive case:

I am a European. I lived many years in Brussels. I rather love the old place. And so I resent the way we continually confuse Europe – the home of the greatest and richest culture in the world, to which Britain is and will be an eternal contributor – with the political project of the European Union. It is, therefore, vital to stress that there is nothing necessarily anti-European or xenophobic in wanting to vote Leave on June 23.

And it is important to remember: it isn’t we in this country who have changed. It is the European Union. In the 28 years since I first started writing for this paper about the Common Market – as it was then still known – the project has morphed and grown in such a way as to be unrecognisable, rather as the vast new Euro palaces of glass and steel now lour over the little cobbled streets in the heart of the Belgian capital.

When I went to Brussels in 1989, I found well-meaning officials (many of them British) trying to break down barriers to trade with a new procedure – agreed by Margaret Thatcher – called Qualified Majority Voting. The efforts at harmonisation were occasionally comical, and I informed readers about euro-condoms and the great war against the British prawn cocktail flavour crisp. And then came German reunification, and the panicked efforts of Delors, Kohl and Mitterrand to “lock” Germany into Europe with the euro; and since then the pace of integration has never really slackened.

As new countries have joined, we have seen a hurried expansion in the areas for Qualified Majority Voting, so that Britain can be overruled more and more often (as has happened in the past five years). We have had not just the Maastricht Treaty, but Amsterdam, Nice, Lisbon, every one of them representing an extension of EU authority and a centralisation in Brussels. According to the House of Commons library, anything between 15 and 50 per cent of UK legislation now comes from the EU; and remember that this type of legislation is very special.

It is unstoppable, and it is irreversible – since it can only be repealed by the EU itself. Ask how much EU legislation the Commission has actually taken back under its various programmes for streamlining bureaucracy. The answer is none. That is why EU law is likened to a ratchet, clicking only forwards. We are seeing a slow and invisible process of legal colonisation, as the EU infiltrates just about every area of public policy. Then – and this is the key point – the EU acquires supremacy in any field that it touches; because it is one of the planks of Britain’s membership, agreed in 1972, that any question involving the EU must go to Luxembourg, to be adjudicated by the European Court of Justice.

It was one thing when that court contented itself with the single market, and ensuring that there was free and fair trade across the EU. We are now way beyond that stage. Under the Lisbon Treaty, the court has taken on the ability to vindicate people’s rights under the 55-clause “Charter of Fundamental Human Rights”, including such peculiar entitlements as the right to found a school, or the right to “pursue a freely chosen occupation” anywhere in the EU, or the right to start a business.

These are not fundamental rights as we normally understand them, and the mind boggles as to how they will be enforced. Tony Blair told us he had an opt-out from this charter.

Alas, that opt-out has not proved legally durable, and there are real fears among British jurists about the activism of the court. The more the EU does, the less room there is for national decision-making....

We have given so much to the world, in ideas and culture, but the
most valuable British export and the one for which we are most famous is
the one that is now increasingly in question: parliamentary democracy –
the way the people express their power.

This is a
once-in-a-lifetime chance to vote for real change in Britain’s relations
with Europe. This is the only opportunity we will ever have to show
that we care about self-rule. A vote to Remain will be taken in Brussels
as a green light for more federalism, and for the erosion of democracy.

In the next few weeks, the views of people like me will matter
less and less, because the choice belongs to those who are really
sovereign – the people of the UK. And in the matter of their own
sovereignty the people, by definition, will get it right.

The choice facing the British people is a straightforward one: will you be sovereign or will you be slaves?

This is one of the great moments of our lifetime, comparable to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. One of the great nations of history is deciding whether to extinguish itself or not. If there is to always be an England, then England must vote Out.

49 Comments:

Are you free or are you owned? The question is addressed in the Declaration of Independence, and it declaims: you do not own yourself, because property rights are transferable, by definition. Your right to yourself is inalienable. You cannot transfer this right. Slavery is not an option. You are free. Everybody arguing against this is arguing for your slavery.

I really hope its a vote to leave (I've just checked and I'm not eligible to vote b/c I've lived outside the country for 15+ years, fair enough). EU is a failed project just facilitating the miseries of the inbred, retarded elite and their ridiculous, "All animals are equal but they are more equal that others... NWO

Afterwards, there's still a shed load of housekeeping to do if they don't want to leave EUrostan just to join the multi-culti Caliphate of Hate.

Mission creep and unintended consequences indeed. Has any bureaucracy, ever, anywhere, at all, self initiated downsizing/ called in mission accomplished and self dissociated - even partially? They created Europe's Novus Seclorum Ordo. The sand castles of humanism are up against their first tidal waves. Europe is Christendom. Or Burning. How big is the exit?

before the vote, there'll be Eurobankster fiat lubricating everything in sight. Remember Scotland? As for as the 'murkan Nationalist candidate, here's the first poll (@ Zerohedge) since his plurality win in SC. This is re Massachusetts, one of the 1 March "Super Tuesday" states:

Trump: 50%

Rubio: 16

Kasich: 13

Cruz: 10

Carson: 2

deep-tolling bell of inevitability beginning to sound, at least re the nomination. As to the election, I'd expect the Judeo-globalist wing of the GOPe to desert to Mrs. Clinton, which will, in turn, bury the Dead Elephant for good

@5 I saw the ZH poll. My understanding is the GOP rules requires a candidate to win an outright majority in at least 8 states to be nominated (and avoid all the smoke-filled room games). This poll is a good sign that Trump can hit that mark.

The language of this vote should contain a clause that the issue may not be voted on again until at least 25 years have elapsed. Without it, a "Leave" vote will be ignored by the EU and their UK minions; they will just keep trying until they get the result they want.

@6: The most rotten thing about leftism is that it destroys personal trust. Every leftist policy tears it apart bit by bit. Every piece of leftist education and media and law tells a person that he can only trust the government, that he cannot trust his family, his community, his friends, his Church, other races, businesses, etc. ad infinitum. Worst of all, it tells him that he cannot trust himself.

@5 I've been wondering about the NE primaries in general. These come late in the schedule for the most part, which would seem to favor Trump. The establishment will remain divided past Super Tuesday and by the time they unite many of the remaining primaries will be in states where the establishment's strategy of leftism cloaked with bible thumping and a southern twang isn't likely to gain them much ground. And Trump should have a plurality throughout the South except for Texas so he'll be entering these late primaries with front runner status.

While what he wrote is amazingly well done, kudos to your expo, I have great doubts about... everything. I honestly doubt this politician cares about freedom or the EU or anything else. Someone wrote that, or thought it out, argued it, taught it. But it, to my mind, was not the politician in question. It is, in essence, a long winded (if also right-minded) chant, mantra, gimmick. I still think either he saw a way to advance, or someone else convinced him to... well... go native. The mayor of London, as a politician, has a dubious history of being a rat bastard. I'm just looking for this typs angle or benefactor/puppet master.

Maybe Thomas was half so doubtful. Then again, I doubt if Thomas ever saw so deeply. Not sure Christ would have called one who had seen so far into the dark. I'm just looking for the rest of the story. Though, if it works, super. It is a well played mantra, just I don't think it is his, at all. I doubt his belief. Must be money for him in leaving the EU. Or it's a put trick to create hostility toward the idea. Pols are inventive rat bastards.

@6 Sanders. While we must take responsibility for our problems, many problems we face today were created by government through laws and regulations that are then compounded by poor or overly aggressive bureaucratic execution. So yes, we must also look to government to solve the problems they created.

Obviously the EU is not interested in fixing anything, cutting anything, or balancing anything. The EU is interested in power and for reasons of SJW-inspired all people are equal idiocy, mass immigration and the free movement of labor, along with the freedom to welfare shop. It is a bloated mess that will someday collapse on itself. Let us not even talk of the Keynesian stupidity that is the Eurobank.

@10 His motivation may indeed be his own personal advancement. A huge number of grass roots conservatives are pro leave. Coming out in favour of coming out has probably significantly increased his chance of being the next leader of the conservative party and therefore Prime Minister.Despite that. He is a politician with appeal to many outside the conservative party. Many non political people. And so his presence on the leave campaign is very useful.I do not trust any politician. And that is one major reason we need independance from Brussels. Our lying low lifes in westminster, we can kick them out every 5 years. The Kommissars, sorry commissioners directing the EU we can do nothing about.

All the people mistrusting Boris Johnson on this are of course right to do so, not least because he is a politician. But to give credit where credit's due, he has been consistently and openly Eurosceptic since at least the 1990s, so it is not as if this just a sudden self-reinvention of a canny politician who noticed which way the wind is blowing. Rather, it is a canny politician's attempt to capitalise on the fact the wind happens to be blowing the way which suits him.

That said he is also on record as being vocally "pro-immigration" and his Euroscepticism is not that central to his image, so he should be treated with all due caution.

Since tne election is being discussedThis vid should prove entertainingOne thing to remember is to even be nominated (gop), you need a 51% majority of delegates in 8 states. Trump won 100% of SC. IA and NH were split, no one has 51%. Thanks Mitt!

I hope British voters go to the polls with the Song "Rule Britannia" going through there heads. They don't rule the waves, but the idea that Britons will never be slaves needs to be foremost in their minds as they vote.

There's much, much more riding on Brexit than just Britain breaking the chains of the EU. Whichever way the domino falls, momentum will build behind the winning side of the spectrum that will more likely than not determine the results upcoming round of general elections across the continent, France most of all. If Britain votes to leave, one should expect (and rejoice) that the second round of the French elections will be contested between the FN and the UMP (though Sarkozy on the ticket might throw this into doubt). How Germany's next election will go is for anyone to say, though I doubt Merkel will find herself anything but either soundly defeated or hanging from a lamp-post should she somehow win.

If England votes - Out - when will the armies of Lincoln cross the Potomac?First, British forces will respond to an EU occupation of the Isle of Wight where the EU forces will claim to have been fired upon. After that, it's just a peacekeeping process for the UN.

I suspect that if the UK comes out that will be the final nail in the coffin for the EU.There are not many subscribers to the EU and the UK was one of them.France will be under considerable pressure,more than a million french work in London.Then there is Germany with it's migrants in situ,how will it cope when it depends on others for positivity?I would have said a no vote very unlikely up to the time of Boris recommending Brexit but,if anyone knows the city of London it is him and I am sure he has one or two tricks up his sleeve.

I honestly doubt this politician cares about freedom or the EU or anything else.

What I said before about Trump, if the parade is big enough it doesn't matter if he stops leading it because someone else will. This pol is seeing a big parade in need of a figurehead.

political union that's on a "Road To Nowhere".

Four lane highways and bridges to Nowhere are usually to land politicians friends and family bought cheap. The Bundy's held out long enough that Hairy Reed put a highway with an interchange right next to their property.

I do not trust any politician.

I trust them as far as I can throw them, but I am willing to give some the benefit of a 6' deep hole.

"It is amusing to see Britain clambering for Home Rule against an oppressive overlord. What's the Irish word for Schadenfraude?"

What's even more amusing is to see the very same Irish who used every kind of terrorist atrocity to gain 'independence' from a country who's Capital City is home to more Irish than Ireland its self, only to meekly surrender that very independence to a cultural suicide super-state without a shot being fired.

What's the the German phrase for Pulling Defeat from the Jaws of Victory?